Mehndi
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: Mine. Yours. Boy Toy: Bracelets on one detective-y wrist. Hot Stuff. Kiss Me. Bite Me: Bracelets on the other. But it was the mehndi swirled all over Sherlock's body that gave John pause. Lots of dry-mouthed pause. And a desire to take the case. *Now.*
1. Chapter 1

_Mine. Yours. Boy Toy. Sexy Thing._

That was one elegant wrist.

_Hot Stuff. Kiss Me. Bite Me. Gimme._

That was the other.

To John's great surprise those eight rubber bracelets—in primary blues, reds, and yellows—suited Sherlock. As did the fifteen leather bands and twelve silver bangles fighting for space on his long arms.

But what really complimented the pale detective was the thing that started at the fingertips of his left hand, traversed over its back, completely covered his forearm, and then stopped short of his elbow, and that was enough mehndi to satisfy the wedding-day needs of half a dozen Indian brides.

It was this last that gave John pause. Lots of dry-mouthed pause.

"I wasn't aware that men do it."

Sherlock twitched the sitting room curtains open with one hand, tugged at his shirt with the other. "There's no reason they can't. It wouldn't be the first time the West adopted another culture's tradition and changed it to suit their needs."

John nodded. "I wasn't aware that anyone does it…there. Or there."

Sherlock unintentionally stood in a nice, dramatic pool of light, touched his face with long fingers. A thin, elegant tracery of henna swirled from chin, up along the left side of his jaw, cheekbone, across temple to brow. "It's an advertisement. Very easy to see."

As he spoke Sherlock unconsciously tugged at his cropped t-shirt again, as he'd been doing for the last twenty minutes. However, he was still missing the necessary fifteen centimetres of fabric needed to cover his very bare, very hennaed belly.

"Is it…" John drifted toward Sherlock and stared down at his decorated stomach, "…anywhere else I might want to know about?"

Sherlock glanced away, then back again. "No. This isn't meant to be sexual John."

The good doctor very purposefully danced fingers over _Hot Stuff,_ then _Boy Toy._

Sherlock scowled. "Costuming. Posturing. As sexy as a fancy belt buckle or trainers with flashing lights."

John tilted his head to the right. Let it stay there.

"You're radiating disapproval but—"

John tilted his head to the left. Let it stay there.

"—but—"

John smiled a small, close-lipped smile.

Sherlock frowned. "What?"

John licked his lips, a quick dart of a quick tongue. "Is this my disapproving face?"

The detective stopped tugging at his t-shirt, stood taller, exposing a good five centimetres more belly. "No."

John ran one finger slowly over the delicate filigree stained onto Sherlock's stomach. "What is this then?" John looked at Sherlock through fine blond lashes. "_Deduce _me."

The lack of cases was frustrating them both, but of course it was Sherlock who suffered the most. Unable to do what he does he would prowl the flat scowling, a fist pressed to breast bone as if clutching at a knot just below the surface.

Sherlock wanted this case. Needed it. It was full summer out there, the sun was shining _every damn day_ and apparently the criminal element had gone on holiday. Probably sunbathing and getting skin cancer and then, just Sherlock's luck, probably up and dying from it.

John knew they needed this case and he knew that whatever it was he'd say yes. But right this minute his fractious, argumentative love clearly needed diversion.

_Deduce me._

Sherlock 's gaze swept from John's brow to his new brogans. Clearly there was nothing to deduce—everything was right there on John's face, pretty and perfect and plain to see. But that didn't matter.

Because Sherlock needed an outlet for all the words crowded in his head, a place to discharge. He needed this. And so he deduced.

"You're wondering where you should get the henna done if we take the case," he said softly. Sherlock knew that _John_ knew what he was going to say next. "Your arms." The consulting detective brushed two fingers along his husband's forearms. "Your beautiful arms." After awhile he trailed fingers up, up, up and along the side of John's neck, made a long, low sound. "And here…so very much here." Sherlock's lids lowered a little, and then a brief smile lit his face. "And that tongue, if it'd stay still long enough."

John reeled in his most squirmy appendage, trapped it with his teeth.

"We'll be vendors. At the Camden market. So we'll need to look like we belong. The henna's just the start." Sherlock rattled the metal bracelets at his wrist. "I'd love to see you in jewelry but your temperament's more suited to other things."

Sherlock sucked vigorously on his lower lip. Then Sherlock wanted to suck other things. He let a hand drift to John's belly, then to the button and zipper on his husband's trousers. "John, John, John. How do you feel about…piercings?"

_Next chapter will contain something about arson, nipples, and slave bracelets. If anyone (I'm looking at you Livia Carica or LadyGrinningSouls) would care to draw Sherlock with a sweet, sweet tracery of mehndi on face, neck, hands, arms, belly—wherever—I would birth your babies. (Even lamb babies, Livia, if I have to.) P.S. Sort of like what I have on my Tumblr (atlinmerrick dot tumblr dot com), only with skill, talent, and partial nudity!_


	2. Chapter 2

John sort of loved Camden during the weekend.

He was pretty sure he shouldn't. He was old enough to be made cranky by the pounding bass throbbing from over-lit shops. Small enough to feel fractious as the crowds closed in around him with sharp elbows and rustling bags. And frugal enough to look around and see nothing but a vast array of poorly-made clothes that would rip at the seams within weeks.

Yeah. John shouldn't have loved the Camden markets but he did.

Well, he _used_ to.

Because they had now been here every single damned weekend for four weeks and they were still exactly as far along on the case as they'd been that first day.

"Sherlock we're exactly as far along as we were the day we got here."

The consulting detective muttered a small curse under his breath; the laces on his shoe had come undone again, "You keep saying that John, and it continues to be of no help at all."

It wouldn't be so bad, John thought, if they weren't in the sodding sun. Right next to two life-sized bronzes of horses being shod, a bronze blacksmith arse pointed directly at the good doctor. It looked an awful lot like a certain consulting arse, if you must know.

Sitting behind a vast glittery array of jewelry and tiny tubes of henna paste, John looked Sherlock up and down and gritted his teeth. He leaned forward in his chair and actually _gritted them._ "Four weeks of _you,_ looking like that…"

The outfits had become scantier as the weeks dragged on. At first Sherlock had settled for jeans, cropped tops, and henna but that attracted a certain clientele not _arson-y_ enough for the consulting detective. And so came a progression of fewer clothes, more jewelry, higher heels…so, so many h—

John stared as Sherlock extended a long leg at the end of which he wore ankle-high stilettoed boots. With a purse-lipped moue he tugged the lace primly tight. John grunted. Every night the criss-cross marks left on Sherlock's feet made the good doctor giddy with shame and erections. He coped by buying Sherlock more shoes.

"…four…weeks…Sherlock. Four weeks of—"

John stood up suddenly, squared his shoulders, _glowered_ at a woman drifting near, grinning at Sherlock. The woman widened her eyes at the tiny tank of a man and drifted right the hell off.

"—everyone and her granny staring at you."

For good measure Sherlock retied the other boot until blood flow was constricted there, too. "Could you please stop frightening off the clientele? That could have been the arsonist."

John sat down hard, crossed his arms over his chest all butch and intense and scowly. "No that was a horny woman who wanted a piece of consulting arse. I know that look. I _am_ that look."

Sherlock didn't let John see his swift smile (John saw it), said, "Maybe so—on all counts—but patience is a virtue my dear (Sherlock's application of endearments (and bromides) was about as random as the rest of him; nonetheless John usually loved them when they popped up.) (Usually.) Sherlock picked up his favorite piercing gun. Looked at John critically.

"Don't you 'my dear' me, mister. You know what we've got now that we didn't have four weeks ago, before we took this sodding case?"

When John was irked—which was almost always—his replies to his own rhetorical questions were usually quite diverting. Sherlock put down the piercing gun (a simple but fascinating tool; Sherlock had already bought himself one; John was still stinging from some of the places…never mind) and gave the good doctor his full attention.

Thus blessed, John stood up again so that he could lean down in Sherlock's personal space and breathe on him while he hissed, "Henna poisoning, piercings in places I used to think sacrosanct, and more offers for sex from strangers than I personally received during my entire military career. Including boot camp. And that's fucking saying something, honey bunch."

Sherlock smiled sweetly, opened his mouth to—

"Don't change the subject."

Sherlock's long since accepted that at this point—four years into their relationship, two as 'married ones'—John can do to him what he does to everyone else. It was fine. It was all fine. However, even though John knew he was about to ask again, and even though John clearly wasn't going to answer, again, Sherlock believed that _eventually_ John would crack and give up this final scintillating detail about his army days. Sherlock knew the good doctor had been widely bedded from boot camp on up, but there'd been a fellow medic with whom John had had an intense twelve week affair and the only, the _only_ thing Sherlock had not deduced about that dalliance was the gender of the medic. It was driving him crazy. Crazier.

"What we _don't_ have, however, are clues. evidence, information. At this point I'd take signs and fucking portents in the form of a burning bush."

John stood tall again, turned toward where the horny woman had last been seen, "And not that kind either."

If Sherlock had been the sort of man who responded to crude humor he'd have barked out a fast laugh. Instead he sighed and reclaimed his sweetheart's attention by insinuating long be-ringed fingers into John's clenched fist.

John Watson looked down at Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes _sort of_ looked up at John Watson (he did that whole chin-down, gaze-up eyelash thingy; usually fairly effective).

"Timmy showed me a very private little place where we could have—"

John growled in a manly growly fashion. He had a very visceral reaction to the word _Timmy_ at this point.

Because _Timmy_ was five feet almost-seven inches of sass and seduction. He was slim and black and sleekly-muscled, with the kind of body John has had precisely never and a way of moving that was pure sex.

He also happened to be the market manager for the vendors along Rassalas Row—for the duration of the case that included _them,_ John and Sherlock—and he seemed to have a warm, _warm_ regard for the sexy detective.

"I suppose _Timmy_ groped you while he showed you this little nook for nooky, did he?"

It took less than a quarter second for Sherlock to decide whether silence or the truth was the more prudent course. However, since Sherlock's acquaintance with silence is glancing at best, the detective said, "He knows I'm married, Joh—"

"I seem to recall that that didn't stop that VitaFit heiress from spreading her superannuated front all over your back last month when you got on your belly to show her the burglar's—"

"That was a special circumsta—"

"It also didn't stop the children's book illustrator from painting you nude and—"

"I told you she used her _imaginatio—"_

_"'Married'_ also didn't seem to make one whit of difference to the Kensington Twins when—"

"Why do you insist on calling them the Kensin—"

"And finally, _finally_ 'married' seemed an actual _enticement_ to that couple from Chatham who wanted to ha—"

"I said no, didn't I say no?"

"I don't _know_ if you said _no_ because I was passed out if you remember, due to a certain doped drin—"

"Excuse me, how much to get my nipples pierced?"

John turned toward the voice, his face plastered with a bright smile. "Excuse me we're—"

This woman could be the arsonist. _Anyone here could be the arsonist._ Sherlock jumped up and said, "That'll depend on the jewelry you choose, ma'am, but the fee begins at thirty pounds."

"Oh, that's quite a good price."

John shifted angrily. Yes, you can shift angrily. His motions drew the tall woman's gaze and she grinned at him broadly, then unconsciously licked her lips. He was so tiny, like a little Hobbit. What a cutie. "Might I have them done now, please?"

Look, John's not the jealous type.

No, erase and begin again. John's not jealous that Sherlock gets the lion's share of come-ons, leers, propositions, or lingering gazes. Not at all. John is _protectively _jealous of Sherlock, in that he does not want his sweetie manhandled, womanhandled, or fucking _twin-_handled, all right?

However.

It does not hurt his sturdy ego to have a pretty girl or a pretty boy look at him and _keep looking at him_ while smiling like _that._ John's muscles untensed, his fists unfurled, and some small part of his brain told him that one, he so was the jealous type, and two, they were here for a reason and he was being an arse, and three, he was totally going to pierce this lovely woman's nipples.

Except…

Sherlock is definitely not the jealous type. Because John? Look at him. _I mean look at him._ If the first words that pop to mind aren't trust-worthy, loyal, faithful, and true you are a blind idiot.

However.

Logic does not always pair itself with human emotion and right now logic wasn't even in the same town as Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock stood up, stood tall, frowned down and pressed close to John. "I'm sorry, I meant thirty pounds _each."_

John wasn't even subtle about the elbow he jabbed in Sherlock's henna-painted belly. Sherlock wasn't subtle about his, "Ouch, why are you jabbing me in the belly with your elbow?" The woman was extremely subtle about her pleasure that the two gorgeous men now seemed to be fighting because of her.

"Excuse my idiot colleague, he's forgotten the _sale_ we've got today—" John gestured to the sky expansively, "—the sun sale! Such a pretty day deserves, um, pretty prices—"

The good doctor briefly frowned at his frankly awful patter and when he felt Sherlock's long body crowd even closer, he did that elbow thing—_"Ow!"—_again.

"We have quite an array of jewelry, take your time selecting what you like. We'll be right here. Waiting." John smiled another pretty smile at her. She returned it with interest. Both metaphorically and literally.

Sherlock, meantime, could not have gotten any closer to John without risk of conjoining them at an atomic level.

"Thank you." With that the woman began browsing.

About then Sherlock began hissing.

He didn't actually _say_ anything, just sort of fizzed loudly at John in either anger, jealousy, or—for all John knew—deductive revelation.

"Sssssss," he said some more, and John crossed his silver-cuffed arms (a _very_ good look for John Watsons, in case you were wondering) and glared up at his sibilating spouse.

This went on for an embarrassingly long time. The hissing. The glaring. Hissing, glaring, hissing, glaring.

Frankly neither was sure where to take the argument at this point, and to be honest neither was even sure what they were arguing about any longer. Which would account for the interminable hissing and tyrannical glaring, probably.

Fortunately a cloud blocked the sun and the lovely woman with the nipples that needed piercing called out, "Uh oh, are you still having a sale if the sun goes in?"

It took a moment for the woman's words to register and then Sherlock radiated _prickly_ and said, "Oh for heaven's sa—"

But John went and hissed right in Sherlock's face—"Sssss!"—spun around, and with a lift of his fine chin, swaggered on over to the woman.

_Swaggered._

Sherlock actually isn't the jealous type. Not as regards John. John is _John,_ and if John's going to go off and do something John-ish with someone else well you've only yourself to blame (Sherlock, mixing lack of self-esteem in with wildly prickly arrogance since 1976).

Anyway, Sherlock isn't often the jealous type but sometimes he makes exceptions and the swagger is the exception he is most prone to make. _Do not swagger for anyone else John Watson,_ Sherlock's brain clamors, but John Watson was doing it anyway. He was walking a whole two metres with a _soddin' swag_ to his step (Sherlock: sometimes enhancing his inner monologue with John's sweary tendencies since 2010) and the woman was _noticing._

_Do not notice! Do not notice John, you defiler of nipples! Look away from my man!_ (Sherlock possibly watches entirely too much _EastEnders_ when John's not around.)

But the woman didn't look away and she did notice the swagger, and when John got near she actually touched him (she was _American,_ of course she touched him; Americans are like that, all bold and grabby and horny), a brush of fingers at his manacled wrist. "Those are so pretty," she said, looking at the silver cuffs, then into John's eyes.

"Some people call them slave bracelets," the good doctor said, having _no fucking clue_ why he said it.

The woman grinned. She hadn't expected to enjoy these crowded markets but she sure-as-shit liked them now. "Are you his, or is he yours?"

Pretty much everyone there assembled—including John—waited for John's answer. So, after a few moments, he made it worth their while.

"Monday, Wednesday and Friday he's mine. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I'm his."

"And today?"

"Sundays…" John breathed, turning to look at his bare-bellied, henna'd, heeled, gorgeous, infuriating, jealous love. "…Sundays we take turns."

Three people stood around for a minute or two, thinking about that. Then the littlest one murmured, "S'my turn now."

The sun was bright, the air fresh and brisk, they were out in the open and yet still you could _smell the sex._ Honest to god the breeze damn well carried the scent of pheromones and musk and spit and whatever else starts flowing when two people suddenly go into rut (well three, but unfortunately for the American she wasn't going to get any).

Sherlock's hand drifted to his own stomach and he did what he's been doing for weeks…started tracing the mehndi there with long, slow fingers. John licked his lips, lifted his chin, got all _captain-y._ He then turned back to the American. "I will pierce any part of your body for free if you watch the stall for the next…the next—"

"—take your time. _Take your time._ All the time you need. Every…" she looked at Sherlock, then down to the bulge in his snug shorts. "…every inch of it."

Right now someone should have been thinking _arsonist_ but no one was. Which was fine really because the American wasn't the arsonist but they had no way of knowing that right then (actually Sherlock already knew without knowing he knew because for the last twenty minutes he's had a _bit of a distraction from the case)._

Anyway, they should have been _on_ the case but they were about to be on each other or, more correctly, Sherlock was about to be on John, all over him actually, covering his small body, riding over that body, moaning and biting and coming in that beautiful, willing, hot little body.

All while Rome—uh, Camden—burned.

Or started to.

_To be continued. (P.S. __I could possibly die utterly content if I got to see these men in those outfits. I can't even continue talking about it because it's…I…)_


	3. Chapter 3

"John! Sherlock!"

A horny, scantily-clad ship under full sail, Sherlock didn't hear the call. He continued plowing forward through Camden's dense Sunday crowds with brisk momentum.

Swept along in that strong tide and deaf to everything but the click of stilettos, John kept his eyes fixed on his husband's ripe behind.

"Hey guys!"

_Shoals._

Sherlock Holmes has a lot of time for which to make up. Prior to John, the good detective's sex life consisted of denial and strangling erections between clenched thighs. In the last four years, however, Sherlock's not only let his libido run free, he's given it smart new trainers and told it to stay out late.

So Sherlock didn't hear the voice calling them because his little velvet shorts were now so erection-tight blood wasn't reaching his fingers much less his ears.

"Wait up!"

_Low-tide. _

Captain John Watson, MD, knows how to focus damn it. He could be surrounded by shouts, ordnance discharge, a conflagration of biting gnats, and two doctors breaking up over a woman in labor, and he will flawlessly focus on the private in need of patching, the one who keeps crying, jerking his wounded arm away, and saying he wants to go home and this is nothing like _Afghan Wreckers 3000 v.3_.

"Hey there!"

So John, didn't hear Mike Stamford either, not until the man in question body-blocked them both.

_Anchor._

"Wow, look at you two!"

Mike Stamford takes every inch of credit for John and Sherlock. He sends them gifts for their anniversary; calls them on major holidays; has suggested that if they ever get a kitten, puppy, or a houseplant, they name it after him, preferably his middle name, Heston (yes, after him).

And as their matchmaker, Mike takes a proprietary interest in the well being of the 221B boys. So, even as the bespectacled doctor grinned at them cheerily, the good man took in John's jeans, boots, gilt belt, and heavy silver bracelets. He looked at John's right bicep painted in a fine henna filigree and a lush swirl of the same from left jaw and neck, down into his snug black t-shirt. He then glanced at Sherlock, and saw not only the vast, nearly-bare acreage, but a slight glaze of testosterone poisoning in the man's eyes. That's when Mike Stamford showed wisdom on a biblical level.

"Look at the time! Have to go. Let's catch up! Coffee at Speedy's tomorrow?"

Both John and Sherlock grunted with such gratitude that Stamford felt as if he'd given them a puppy, a kitten, _and_ a nice little house plant.

"Noon it is." And with that The Man Who Started It All was gone.

…

_Click. Click. Click. Click._

It was a metronome for his desire, John thought. The sharp sound of his husband's five-inch heels on Camden cobblestones was in perfect time with the throbbing in John's throat, his chest, his dick. Thank god Mike had—

"Sherlock!"

John heard Greg's voice just fine and being as he was crowding less than two feet from his fast-moving sweetheart's back end he knew Sherlock did, too. "Go. Just go. If it's another case and they need you, they'll need you in thirty minutes even more."

"Oy!"

Sherlock has had to choose between John and a case many times in the last four years, and as those years progress he more often makes the correct choice. Today was not one of those days.

Sherlock stopped with, he thought, some forewarning, but John ran into him anyway. Only after his husband humped his thigh twice did Sherlock realize the good doctor did it on purpose.

"Hello Greg."

After seeing the surveillance footage of what John and Sherlock got up to at the Marylebone and Baker intersection at three a.m. on Christmas eve, Lestrade's no longer surprised at what the boys do. So Greg barely flicked his gaze over them both, but of course his detective's eye saw the reedy-fast pulse at two throats, the compulsive clenching of doctorly fists, and the rather hypnotic squeezing together of two long, bare thighs.

"Have a question about the Kensington Twins case when you've got a minute—"

Exasperation: "They weren't twin—"

Growling: _"Leave it,_ Sherlock."

"—but, uh, it can wait until tomorrow."

And with that Greg Lestrade went in search of his sweetie, trying not to clench his own…well anything.

…

Righteously irked, legs spread combatively, John Watson glared up at Sherlock through fine blond lashes. "You could have kept going."

Sherlock looked around innocently, doing his patented, suddenly-deaf thing.

"But no, your curiosity would have killed you dead if you didn't find out what Greg wanted. Meanwhile I think the blood pressure in my cock is so high I've gone hypertensive."

Sherlock glanced down between his husband's legs. The pretty thing there got him fingering the mehndi swirls on his own belly.

"Nice try mister, but I think maybe, just maybe, I'm not in the mood anymore."

Sherlock stopped pretending to be deaf. Sherlock's dropped his hand from his belly. And then Sherlock pushed all of his high-heeled six-feet-nearly-six-inches right on up against John.

John Watson didn't move. He stared with grim determination at his husband's breast bone and he emphatically did not tilt his head back to look at his lusciously looming love. He would not be mollified that eas—

Sherlock cocked his hip, pressing a long, smooth thigh between John's legs. Without his permission John's hips began to hump.

Admittedly it was just a few itty bitty pumps, but Sherlock knew his sweetie was now mollified and that they were back on the same page, and that hormone-addled page was _let's find a nice private place to fuck._

And then…

"Well this is unexpected."

Sherlock's entire body went as hard as that bit of proud flesh between his legs. "Don't turn around John."

Not even remotely as mollified as Sherlock had deduced, John Watson lifted his chin, set his jaw, and about-faced with stiff-backed alacrity. "Hello Mycroft."

Dressed down in a pressed polo shirt and linen trousers, a fine ginger curl gracing his brow, the elder Holmes held his brother-in-law's eye. He deduced, however, an erection (from the pretty red blush at the tops of John's ears), anger with Sherlock (the flare of John's nostrils)—

"Hello dear brother-in-law, don't you look…pirate-y."

—and permission to irk the hell out of his sibling (John's complicit grin). Though the Holmes brothers get along far better now than in the past, always near was the delicious temptation to taunt.

"And I see you've managed to capture a bit of…booty."

Arms crossed, stance wide, John threw back his head and laughed, a tiny buccaneer. Behind him Sherlock shifted so petulantly his stilettos Morse coded _oh no he didn't!_

"What can we do for you Mycroft? We were just out for a little stroll, nothing important."

Truthfully there was no reason to detain his brother or brother-in-law right now. The small matter of an island that had gone missing late last night, and the little issue with the Large Hadron Collider were trifles that could wait.

_Still…_

"Why yes, John, I'd like to invite you and your dear spouse to our place later this week."

Behind him John's spouse angrily huffed and stamped his foot like some rangy albino pony. John's mind veered right the hell away from that image because seriously, he's so hard in his trousers right now the good doctor's pretty sure he'll have a zipper-shaped bruise on his cock tomorrow.

"Would," John cleared his throat, "uh, would Wednesday suit?"

Six feet six inches of sexually-frustrated pony—uh, glory—pressed in close behind him and at this point John was on such a hair-trigger he thinks maybe the entire back of his body came.

"Because Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, or Tuesday, are all good for us gotta go Mycroft I'm sorry we're late say hi to Greg bye."

And with that John about-faced so quickly a pressing-leaning-clenching Sherlock almost pitched forward and even Mycroft was a bit surprised.

…

Within minutes it was good. It was all good.

Two horny ships under fresh canvas, the boys of 221B were sailing within shouting distance of their little nook for nooky. Sherlock knew it because he'd been there, John knew it because his fast-striding love was doing something brand, brand new and it was probably going to kill John within inches of their goal.

Sherlock was stroking his own arse.

It had started mere moments before as he'd picked up his pace. Pressing a long-fingered hand to the small of his own back, he then went and slid that hand provocatively south, over the cleft and plump curves of his behind.

Made of stern stuff, John would probably have survived that, but then Sherlock's other hand joined the first, and each cupped, then lifted, then _god damn spread_ the cheeks of that heart-shaped arse.

Aaaand that was it.

Like the honey badger, John Watson just didn't give a shit any more. Long since poisoned by toxic levels of sex hormones, bewitched by the carnal shenanigans going on in front of him, the good doctor simply gave in, clapped a hand over his crotch and started to—

"Hey sweetie."

All the wind in all the world went away and two over-stimulated ships instantly ran to ground.

Sherlock stopped walking. By virtue of running into Sherlock's back, John did, too.

"I need yesterday's figures little love."

After a brief extrication of spousely limbs, the good detective turned with such crisp military precision that the ex-army doctor got harder, which at this point wasn't even possible, much less safe.

"Timmy," purred the erect detective, "could this wait until—"

Timothy Spencer Marks is not a blind man—though even a sightless one could see the spectacular hard-on outlined in Sherlock's velvet shorts—so the thing that _could_ have waited? It was so not going to.

Because Mr. Marks has a thing for Mr. Holmes. He's pretty sure he's not going to _get_ that thing—

Timmy's gaze flicked over John. Their tongues swiped their lips at the same time, their dark gazes flowed over one another fast as fire.

—but that didn't stop Timmy from _wanting._

John's prickly gaze jutted its belligerent chin and growled: _If you call my husband 'little love' one more time I'm going to give you a bad day. A very bad day._

Timmy's liquid gaze replied: _If you're part of the deal I'll take it, you know. Both of you. Twice. At the same time. I can. I would. Oh sweetie I_ will.

Sherlock's gaze absorbed the battle of the tiny titans before him and unlike his husband, Sherlock saw that Timmy's never well-hidden intentions now included every pugnacious inch of his husband. Planting six and a half proprietary feet in front of his pint-sized potentate Sherlock purred, "Sixteen forty-eight…"

Timothy Marks looked down, at those long, wickedly-spread legs. Henna filigree disappeared into the tops of tightly-laced ankle boots.

"…five hundred and three…"

The market manager's gaze flowed up to a painted, pierced belly. It didn't take a consulting genius to realize John had probably done that piercing, and it didn't take any imagination to visualize the doctor tonguing at the bejeweled hoop glistening there.

"…and twenty-two and five pence."

Timmy continued seeing. There was still so much to observe, after all, including the velvet collar at Sherlock's throat (edged with silver embroidery that matched the gilt belt topping John's jeans), the henna that swirled from neck to jaw to temple, the kohl-smudged eyes.

"Are we good?"

Blood long since gone south, it took Timmy's gaze several seconds to reach all the way north. When it finally did he wiped sweaty palms on his own tight trousers, glanced at John, who had stepped from his husband's overprotective shadow, and murmured, "Sure."

John nodded curtly _without moving one inch of his body._

Oh hell's pretty bells. Timmy went a little slack-jawed and knew that for four weeks he's been hot for the wrong man. He swiped at his lips with an over-active tongue again and looking right at John said, "We're good little love. I promise you…we are very, _very_ good."

You'd have to be blind, deaf, and possibly unconscious to not understand what was happening just then. And you'd have to be the rangy, deranged, half-naked husband of an exquisitely BAMF little spouse to think that physically body-blocking him from view—again—was going to have any effect on either one man's newly-formed affections or the other man's prickly bad-day threat.

You'd also have to be dimmer than dirt to not predict what was going to happen the second Timmy was finally gone.

…

"John Watson-Holmes what the _hell_ was that?"

John Watson-Holmes' brows hit his hairline so hard it was audible. "What now?"

"Why," hissed the good doctor's husband, "did you let Timmy look at you like that."

_Oh no he didn't._

In an instant every banty-rooster inch of John Watson-Holmes puffed right the hell on up. From dark blue gaze to widely-planted feet, the ex-soldier positively towered.

"Listen, Mr. 'Maybe Greg's Got a Case for Me So I'll Just Stop and Check' Holmes-Watson, if you think for one absolute minute that I—"

"John!"

"—if you think that—"

"John!"

_Oh for god's sake this was more than any living being should be expected to bear._

As one the doctor and the detective turned toward that calling voice. As one they dipped chin to chest and maybe sort of growled. And as one they…

…watched the short, bald dad run after his tubby little toddler, both of them yelling "John! John! Jooohn!" off into the distance.

_Oh._

And right about then the wind shifted, both literally and metaphorically.

The literal shifting brought with it the dark, evocative scent of horny detective, a smell John can't describe without getting hard. Suffice to say that that fragrance consists of salt, heat, spit, spice, and small bits of heaven, and a horny doctor will usually go to his knees to _get to it._

The metaphorical shifting of the wind was that detective and that doctor finally giving up their bickering as a bad job, and deciding to just get the hell on with it.

And, as has been stated previous, _it_ was going to consist of many things, including:

* Sherlock Holmes, bare but for a pair of five-inch boots, enthusiastically mounting his little love.

* Sherlock Holmes loquaciously singing the praises of the surprise such mounting will unveil.

* And John Watson being so fuck-all over-stimulated by god-damn-everything that drastic sweary measures will need to be undertaken to get the man off at all.

* Oh, and also fire.

_Look, this was supposed to be a three-chapter fic but folks really liked the bickering, and then Lazy_8s said it would be cool if Mycroft got an eyeful, and I so enjoy your flailing when I tease you…and okay, all right, _all right._ Please leave me a pretty comment and in the next chapter we'll finally get these randy boys off before someone bruises internally, including me._


	4. Chapter 4

They did fuck-all for five minutes.

Or maybe it just felt that long. John's not sure, Sherlock's always been bad with time, and frankly, once they slid through the slender space between two old stone walls, through a wood-framed hidey-hole, and veered into the indeed quite-tiny nook, they were both so surprised to at last _be_ there they kind of just stood around.

"Nice," John said.

Created by the near-meeting of the exterior of four ancient stables, the nook was too small for even a small man to recline.

Sherlock nodded. "Yes, I thought so."

The eaves overhead didn't quite meet, leaving diffuse light to fill the space with soft illumination.

"So," John said, scratching distractedly at a new piercing.

Sherlock nodded, as ever, poor at small talk.

It went like this for an entire unseemly minute. Then, finally, at last, Sherlock tugged at his scanty little velvet shorts, distractedly attempting to relieve the pressure against his _extremely erect penis._

Suddenly of the same mind, the two men fell upon one another like lust-starved men falling upon one another.

Though they both lunged at the same time, John _meant_ it a teensy bit more and so he body-slammed his sweetie into the wall hard enough for Sherlock to gust out a rewarding little, "Umph."

And then John tugged him away from the wall by the non-existent lapels on his t-shirt, shoved him hard against the brick wall again, placed his mouth against Sherlock's mouth and then _did absolutely nothing._

Sherlock's body instantly did three things in response: his heart—which John could feel pounding against his own chest—thrummed so fast the good doctor couldn't count the beats; Sherlock got a fraction harder, causing the sole button on his tiny shorts to at last pop off; and the good detective, not to put too fine a point on it, started leaking like a mother fucker.

_Again._

Four things, Sherlock's body did _four_ things actually, and the fourth one, the one that almost _sang,_ was the long length of that body vibrating like the string of some fine-tuned instrument, its single note just that:

_Again. Again. Again._

At some point in their long marriage the men of 221B will try for size every single sexual kink possible. Some will linger and stay. Most—like the one John is about to revisit for the second time in as many weeks—will be briefly enjoyed and then discard. But for their short time in the erotic sun each kink _will_ be enjoyed.

It didn't matter that the space in which they stood wasn't even five foot square, John tightened his fists in Sherlock's shirt and he _slammed_ that pretty back into the _other_ wall and face pressed to the soft skin of Sherlock's neck he hissed in pretend possession, "Don't ever, ever look at another man like that again."

Sherlock didn't reply at first, just damn well rumbled low in his chest, then he pressed his mouth to the top of John's sandy head and whispered back in manufactured indignation, "I'll look John, at whomever I please. And _he_ pleases me John, oh yes…"

This game—let's call it _You're Mine—_will not long blaze bright in their sexual firmament, chiefly because both of these men _are_ a bit possessive and both _can_ be indignant and each is smart enough to realize that's a bit not good and making of it a game is worse and—fuck it, right now they're going to fuck _to_ it so never mind.

Before Sherlock could finish talking John dropped his hands to his sides, then simply leaned his small body against his husband's and essentially had sex with the man's mouth.

Here's the thing…

Kissing's an art form few master. But so skilled is John Watson at this craft that he once got a fellow army captain off without touching any part of her with any part of him—except where mouths met. So good is he at kissing that simply the press of lips and tongue against Sherlock's collarbones in the back room of a crime scene one night was enough to get Sherlock hard and his frustrated mind focused—as was the proviso that he would only get _unhard_ once the case was finished.

An hour and a half later they were stroking each other off on the roof of 221B.

In this particular instance so effective were John's kisses that Sherlock hooked the fingers of both hands in the collar of John's shirt and, sliding down that rough brick wall, he dragged his sweetheart with him until plush bum was planted on dusty ground and army doctor kneeled between long, wide-spread legs.

John kept kissing that mouth awhile though he soon went south, visiting familiar friends: the collarbones, the notch in Sherlock's throat, and peaked nipples poking hard through flimsy cloth.

And then John simple stopped with all the damn preamble and planted that mouth over Sherlock's cock.

Two spiked heels digging deep into the dirt, palms flat in the dust, Sherlock raised his hips right off the ground, pushing at that fine mouth.

John grunted his approval, head bobbing up for each thrust of those velvet-clad hips, and he let it all get each of them into a fine, _fine_ lather and then he sat back on his heels—how pretty John's cheekbones look winged in scarlet, Sherlock briefly thought—and John said, "If he touches you again…"

The good doctor leaned forward on the palm of one hand, his face not one foot from his husband's and let silence craft for him a wordless mostly-mock threat.

Sherlock lifted his chin, bold as you please, leaned forward as if to argue, and then he whispered warm against John's mouth, "If he touches me again…" the good detective glanced south, "I'll let _you_ touch me down there after…twice."

_Down there._

When you're a child you don't say cock or arse or penis, you say _down there._ It not only fits a little mouth more easily, but it kind of makes _there_ a mysterious, pleasantly naughty place and John's known he reacts sexually to those words for a long time. Sherlock's known for exactly eight seconds because the flush on John's face was now along the fine shell of his ears.

All right. _All right already._ This was so much more than enough. Why they were even trying to turn each other on at this point neither can explain, but maybe it was because orgasms are pretty easy to come by, but doing _this_ to one another because you know you _can?_ A pleasantly _naughty_ pleasure best enjoyed as often as possible.

But hell, no seriously, enough really _was _enough.

Surprisingly, it was Sherlock who gave in first. "John?"

John was still hearing Sherlock say those two magic words and they were still doing some sort of mad voodoo to the good doctor's breathing so he didn't reply, just kind of huffed.

"I'm now so over-aroused I'm wetting my shorts, John."

Together, both men looked _down there._

Sherlock's little purple trunks—which were now shy one valiant button—were indeed dramatically undry right about the spot where the head of Sherlock's cock was attempting a jailbreak out the low-slung waistband of those self-same shorts.

_And wasn't that a visual?_

On hands and knees now, John looked _down there_ and he looked and he kept on looking. Shortly he said:

"Sherlock."

That single word was a warning. A small, doctorly heads up from a small doctor: _systems shutting down. I am now either drunk or drugged or whatever it is you call it when you have seriously stopped thinking with any advanced portion of your brain and switched on over to instinct and its evolutionary compatriot, raw desire. Just a courtesy warning darling, do not be alarmed, I repeat, do not be alarmed._

Then, still looking hard at that hard thing between his husband's legs, John's brain went back to one word definitive statements:

_Big,_ grunted his reptile brain (unlike the good doctor, it's a tiny bit of a size queen).

_Wet,_ it added, forcing a doctor's questing tongue between lips.

_Want want want,_ was the penultimate declaration, followed quickly by a feral noise that stood for eight perfect letters:

_Sherlock._

Words now officially redundant by the part of John's body running the show, that part finally raised John Watson up, stood him tall, and started stripping him so fast he banged bare elbows into the rough walls three times before he even noticed he was bleeding.

John had his boots, his trousers, and his black lace knickers ("No one's going to know what's under my jeans Sher—" "—I will." "All right then.") off within thirty seconds. He was pretty much three articles of clothing ahead of a now-stripping Sherlock, who was still struggling with his _Touch Me Hold Me Bite Me_ belt—one of his rings was caught in the leather weave.

Sherlock was usually smarter than a skull-shaped ring. He was not smarter than _this_ skull-shaped ring, apparently, because he could not get the thing untangled from—

"Just take the _ring_ off, Sherlock."

_Oh._

In another thirty seconds Sherlock was bare but for his pretty purple boots and John was bare but for…

John grinned when Sherlock catwalked up to him—few can do it in less than three feet; Sherlock is one of that small, select band—pressed his fevered front along John's and then took hold of the good doctor's arse, tugged him onto tiptoe by that delectable double-handful and Frenched him like it was going out of style.

While each gave as good as he got for several dozen frantic heartbeats, Sherlock ran one long index finger down the crease of John's arse and without preamble slid that damn thing right on inside.

Sherlock moaned in pretty, _pretty_ surprise.

John was wet _down there._ John had prepared himself _down there._ Dear god when? When had he had the time? They'd been together since before leaving the flat, since—

John had run back inside for his mobile this morning. The one he never forgets. The one he'd…forgotten.

Sherlock widened his stance, standing more firmly so he could _rut harder._ Because the feel of his finger slicking in and out of this spot John _prepared in advance_ was actually making breathing problematic and the good detective was happily light-headed and also kind of making a mess between them but that was fine, it was—

"Fuck it."

For a man that swears and rages as often as does John, the good doctor doesn't often use foul language during sex. So when he does…

"Fuck, fuck, fuck _it."_

Every towering inch of Sherlock Holmes went still, the better to listen to his husband's soft-spoken words.

"I've been waiting all day, wanting you to find out, wanting you to do it. Do me. So stop fingering it and fuck. It."

How long had they been hard? How long had it taken them to get from vendor stall A to hidden nook B? In objective time: Not quite twenty minutes. In subjective my-teeth-ache-from-the-pressure-in-my-dick terms: Since well before the beginning of time.

"Kneel, John."

For all his domineering size Sherlock rarely commands in obvious ways. His methods are usually more subtle, but that whole subjective thing? Yeah, well it's muddled them both to such a degree that there just wasn't _time_ anymore for subtle or usual or—

"Yes, sir."

With a small click of bare heels, and a downward bob of his head, John turned sharply, presenting his back to Sherlock, and sank to his knees.

Instantly Sherlock was on his in reverence. "Oh dear god…"

Again with the breathing, the breathing he was barely doing. Sherlock ran tender fingers over John's back, over the 'wings' hennad there.

_When? How?_

"John, John, John. Oh John."

They were sharp, dramatic, the wings of an avenging angel—or of a man so in love with another man that he will (and did) rise at five in the morning to have them stained onto his skin so that his husband would do this, exactly this…

Rarely surprised, almost never speechless, Sherlock was briefly both.

And then, bending over his sweetheart, he kissed along his spine, his shoulder blades, at the back of his neck and he waxed positively lyrical.

"Divine," said the agnostic man tracing the tracery with every one of his long, questing fingers, "celestial, heavenly, beautiful, amazing." He kissed again and murmured, "For me," as if that were the most sacred thing of all, and maybe he'd have continued his murmured devotions, all the while caressing those pretty wings, but John brought him down to earth quickly with one bold wiggle of his arse. Sherlock's cock throbbed in _I hear you!_ response and finally, at last, _it is about damn time,_ A and B were united in sure and perfect union.

Which is to say Sherlock slid his dripping cock into John's slicked-up hole and everyone got goosebumps and sighed and possibly a chorus of angels (maybe avenging) raised their voice in sexually-relieved song.

Sherlock leaned back until his head rested against the rough wall behind him, canted those fine hips, and went ahead and pulled out then filled John's arse with every damn inch of himself over and over.

Even now, after a hundred years of foreplay, Sherlock was ready to drag things out, but John was pretty sure he'd need a paramedic if someone didn't get off soon, so he placed hands wide against the wall in front of him—the wings…those _wings—_and growl-moan-whispered, "Fill me Sherlock."

_This_ is how they command, this is how John and Sherlock dominate one another: From their knees.

Sherlock resisted—his is a mind that in some things craves the certainty of habit, and driving them both up the wall with need is really kind of a Sherlock routine.

"Fill me Sherlock, fill me, fill me."

And the sound of John—was it begging or a command?—was beautiful.

"Please, please—" it was begging "—now Sherlock now—" commanding, it was John sliding his palms down the wall, until his arms were spread wide, soft light making shadows dance along his back, making those wings quite nearly flutter—and finally Sherlock's cock took the reins and within the minute he was ejaculating with a deep grunt.

Sherlock followed the pleasure, pressing chest and head against John, wrapping arms tight around his sweetheart's waist, gently rocking them both until his own breathing slowed, until his heart calmed.

Scattering kisses over his love's neck and cheeks, Sherlock did that thing he sometimes does, a not-purr that might as well be, a sweet-soft growling noise John loves whether it symbolizes contentment, arousal or, as now…_intention._

"Mmmmm, you made me, John," Sherlock whispered into sweaty, sandy hair, "You made me _come."_

On their knees in the dust in that tiny place there should have been sneezes, aches, a need to stretch and move, but instead there was stillness and sweat and soft voices. "Yes," murmured John, "Yes."

Sherlock's slow and gentle rocking became slowly less so. He swayed John's body using his own and, still holding tight with one arm, he slipped the other down and, with a soft sigh as if it were his own body he touched, he took hold of John's cock and started to slowly stroke.

Love, lust, peace, need. Ease and feeling frantic, wanting and knowing you have all the time in the world to _get,_ fucking and making love…it's a beautiful jumble, it's this, it's them.

And leaning back against Sherlock's chest, with every stroke of that knowing hand, John grew more and more certain of one simple, simple thing…

"Oh shit, Sherlock, I am so not going to come."

_John's wildly over-stimulated and sort of stuck with his engine revving (like me writing this story-that-will-not-end). It's good, it's all good Sherlock's gonna pop John's clutch in the next chapter, the one that hopefully unveils the arsonist, too. Can you deal with another chapter of sex? P.S. If you want to see the wings John had henna'd onto his back, check out my Tumblr (atlinmerrick. tumblr. com/post/21668236614/fic-mehndi-every-towering-inch-of-sherlock) — remove the spaces in that URL!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Warning: I've no idea if a lot of anal play requires a warning but here you go: A warning. For a lot of anal play.**

"Hush," shushed Sherlock, wrapping his arm tighter around John. "We have," he said with teeth and tongue against warm skin, "all the time in the world."

Nibbling soft at one small sweet spot on John's neck, Sherlock stroked, relishing the heavy heat of John's cock, his _need._ Grinning, he slowed his hand, then again, felt that hard-on changing, changing, changing…by not one small degree.

"God Sherlock, I'm sorry."

It happens, it damn well happens to every man, whether BAMF!army doc or demented detective. Tired, cranky, not ready, whatever, there've been more than enough occasions in their years together where one or the other just could not get up and get off. After the first (third) time, they learned to just shrug and move on.

But this? Being so turned on and over-damn-stimulated that the engine was stuck and revving…this was a bit new.

"I'm so sorry."

Sherlock sat on his heels, slid one warm hand to John's waist, briefly traced the henna wings on his husband's back with the long fingers of the other. "My angel," he whispered soft, "we'll make you fly." Tugging John into his lap, sliding a hand up and over his mouth, arching his neck until both their heads rested against the rough wall at their back, Sherlock slid his hand around John's cock, and started talking dirty.

"Oh John…my John," he breathed against an ear and then a sweaty shoulder, tongue lapping at a scar it couldn't reach but at a scar it _wanted,_ oh Sherlock always wanted at that scar. "I could get hard for you again, I could get so hard from want of you."

Sherlock slid his middle finger into John's mouth, pressed the others over it tighter, stuttered when he felt John begin to suck. "I f-feel your warm, slick hole against my cock right now John. I can imagine pressing up, pushing, needing, wanting that tightness…oh I can feel myself sliding deep inside you John—"

Sherlock rocked his hips. "—and you're wet down there, dear god you're so wet because you want me and you needed to be ready and so you made yourself ready, you slicked up your fingers and slid them inside your—"

John grunted.

Sherlock hushed.

John grunted again.

Sherlock stilled.

John's muscles went soft and Sherlock let his sweetheart go.

"This," said the good doctor, hanging his head, "fucking sucks."

Fact: Sherlock is a super genius. Fact: Sherlock's been married to John Watson for two years. Fact: In that time Sherlock's learned a great deal about John's body, John's heart, John's _mind._ Fact: Sherlock Holmes can figure this out. He can…

_"Oh."_

Soft as the mew of a kitten that breathy sound, but John heard it. Enclosed by four stout walls, lanced with the gentlest of illumination, they were in their own quiet cathedral for heaven's sake, of course he heard it. And he was one second away from saying, "No love, seriously, enough is enough. I'll just calm the hell down and later, we'll finish this later." But John didn't get the chance because Sherlock was unwinding his limpet self from around John's body and all six feet six stilettoed inches of him were standing tall and then turning…

…turning his back to John, Sherlock braced himself with one hand on the wall and he slowly and pointedly looked _down there._ "Oh…" he sighed, reaching low until John could just see fingertips brushing, then pressing at the sac between his husband's spread legs. "John…I'm going…" Sherlock looked overhead, then down again to a cock John couldn't see, "…I'm going to touch myself, and I'm not going to stop…not…oh god…going to stop….until I come, until I come_ again."_

John Watson, winged and kneeling there in that dusty cathedral, made a small, divine little sound.

Here's the thing: Of course Sherlock really _is_ a super genius. And he'd quite correctly figured out an important little fact: Remove the _pressure, _literally unhand your man and let him handle himself, and suddenly that whole _I'm never going to come _thing? Well it's not such _a thing _anymore as he slowly strokes himself, watching you stroke _you._ And the nice, delicious bonus? Sherlock would again try that new little sexual something he'd unveiled not twenty minutes previous.

So. Let the passion play begin.

"John…" said Sherlock, head bowed, long body gently swaying into the unseen movements of his right hand. "…my cock…already it feels…oh god mmmm…_hard_ for you."

Sherlock took a sharp breath, paused, turned a little, his profile just barely visible. He slow-licked his palm—another sound, soft and sweet and needy, from the man on his knees—and then Sherlock reached between his legs again.

"This won't be quick, no, can't be…too soon…it's too soon, but I _want_ it, John, I want to come again, come hard thinking of you on your knees and touching yourself, thinking of you touching me, oh…"

Sherlock quite literally pawed the ground with one high-heeled foot, then arched his back, the swell of that fine arse looming like some sort of pale celestial object at perigee.

Soft swearing from the single most important devotee of that divine thing and so help him, from two feet away Sherlock could nearly feel the heat of John's breathing pooling avid against his sweaty skin.

"Oh god I can feel you John, how near you are, how hot you are, the brush of your breath against me, I almost feel you touching me, so intimate, so desperate, here, right here—"

Sherlock slid his legs wider and then he did it again, he _did it again,_ and _it _was slide his own hand over the bounty of his arse and take hold of the flesh and moan so grandly that John growled-whimpered-sighed—a promise perhaps, or warning.

"Oh fuck…" sighed Sherlock, digging his fingers into the soft-firm flesh of his right arse cheek. "…I feel you here, right here John." Sherlock arched his back harder. "Oh god, your mouth, that _mouth…"_ He moaned. "…just a breath away, but I can almost feel your tongue flicking over, and in my, oh…oh…" Sherlock keened softly and spread himself open with the long fingers of one hand.

God damn, double damn, fucking hell and damn it took a every considerable bit of willpower John Watson possessed not to rise up on his knees and bury his tongue deep inside his husband's arse. Some things are quite nearly as good as getting off and over the years the good doctor's learned that rimming Sherlock is one of those fine, _fucking_ fine things. Good god he once spent an entire hour licking Sherlock out, moaning louder than the man himself, drunk with the feel, the smell, the taste of that clean, sweaty, flushed-hot skin.

So it was something of a small, crazy miracle that the good doctor resisted the temptation to crawl on his knees and clutch at those voluptuous hips, that he didn't just clamp that mouth over what was being _spread wide and offered _and plunge on in and fucking _feast_ with a boy-howdy and a happy moan.

No, John he-raises-the-BAMF-level-of-the-whole-damn-street Watson resisted the gravitational pull of Sherlock's heavenly arse though the effort may have cost him a year off his life, the ability to speak, or a small pony, who the hell knows.

All John knows is that Sherlock wasn't done, dear god no, no, a thousand times no.

"Oh…I remember," rumbled Sherlock, running one long, wet finger up the spread seam of his arse, "…I remember you here John, right here…"

Sherlock pressed the tip of that roving finger against tight, puckered flesh, sucked a breath sharp through teeth. "…on me in me right here, where I'm sensitive, so sensitive and you were…doing it…oh god…doing that thing you do with your tongue…" Sherlock slowly _pushed_ a finger inside himself, "…doing what only you do to me here, oh _John_…I feel you here, here, right here…"

Then, with a long and lavish moan Sherlock began to carefully, thoroughly, and with a great deal of _dialog,_ slowly finger-fuck his own arse.

And frankly you could have set fire to all of London right about then and John Watson would have let it burn.

…

Sherlock grunted as his finger sunk in to the hilt. He didn't move for a moment and then it became clear, crystal clear that with that crazy-long finger he was stroking, stroking, stroking _inside himself,_ pushing in so deep his legs started to shake. "Oh god John I feel you want you _taste you._ This is what you do to me, this is what you do…"

Sherlock rested his head against the rough-hewn wall in front of him. "…when you touch me here…" Sherlock groaned and thrust that squirming finger deeper still. "Y-you make me forget, John. Forget that once I didn't want this." That long finger slowly withdrew until just the tip of it kept him open. "That I didn't even know or care."

They'd been 'just' flatmates for eight weeks before they were lovers and was there really even one day of that time where some part of Sherlock's body wasn't clamoring for this, for a hundred other things, for _John? _Maybe, but that time's four years gone and even Sherlock's big brain can no longer recall a moment when he did not want to receive everything the man on his knees wanted to give him.

"Oh but I care now John, and I know, and most of all I want it, all of it, I want you to—" Sherlock slid in another crazy-talented finger, spread them, opening himself up. "—do it to me, do it do it _do it_ here right here all the time sometimes, hard and deep and quick, soft and slow and buried to the hilt, I don't care so long as you're here—" Sherlock slid that middle finger in again, started pumping it fast inside himself and this time John came closer, just enough so that his breath pooled hot and wet over that small sweet place Sherlock pleasured. "—oh god as long as your tongue or your mouth or your cock are fucking me here right here oh John that's enough, that's everything."

Hell's bells, resistance was futile.

With a small questioning sound John finally leaned forward and swiped a broad wet tongue along the seam of Sherlock's arse while the good detective _continued fingering himself._

And wasn't that a heady, breathless little how-do-you-do?

As if this was how it went, how it always went, they worked in concert, they double-teamed, they _fucked Sherlock together._

And good god in heaven it was fine.

So very much more than fine for the statuesque man standing tall, long legs trembling, senses humming, every considerable bit of his great mind focused on one very small, tight part of his body.

And much more than fine for the winged man worshipping on his knees, the one who also hardly remembers a time before, who's nearly forgotten the years when this, and this _man,_ were not the focus of his desire, his want, his dear-god _need._

John growled and bit soft, rounded flesh and then again he lapped between arse cheeks and while he did, he stroked himself in time with their fucking, nothing else mattering at all, nothing else _registering_ at all, just the deep sounds rising from his husband's chest, the cant of those hips, the feel of them working that hole together, and yeah, it was safe to say no one remembered before, no one _wanted_ to remember before.

"Hot…it's hot…your tongue. I feel it when you push inside, I feel the heat of it, and the wet, oh god yes I love the _wetness._ It feels like come, so slick and right and god I want you deeper, all the way in, pushing, fucking, tasting and—_oh god."_

John didn't know he would do it until he'd done it, and it was to slide the index finger of his free hand in beside Sherlock's finger, sinking all the way in, deeper than his tongue could ever go, deeper even than Sherlock could reach with his own fingers and apparently that was it—after five breathy moans, one for each penetrating thrust of his finger inside Sherlock, John came hard and with such brain-rattling relief that his keening could quite nearly be heard clear on over to Camden Road.

And it didn't stop, are you kidding? No, even though Sherlock had had no real expectation of getting off, even though his plan had been merely to turn John's mind from his own frustration, the feel of John panting against him, the unexpected stretch of another of John's fingers sliding in slow and deep…

…well before he thought about what he was doing Sherlock was reaching _down there_ with his left hand and he was stroking himself to each slow penetration of his own and John's fingers, pushing back, pushing back, and he was _talking_ again because that's what Sherlocks do to drag it out, make it last, send them both round the giddy bend.

"So…so…deep dear god I think your touching…everything. I feel you moving inside me, squirming, touching something something—oh god John it feels so good it _hurts,_ like there's nothing else of me, just this…this one small, needy, desperate—god yes. Oh god John, do it there right there there there…_push _fuck fuck…again hard there deep there, again again aga—" and with an arch-necked groan, Sherlock started coming, right up against that stable wall.

It took both their bodies a long leisurely while to burn through all the last little bits of pleasure. Took awhile for the trembling, clenching, and hammering to finally fade. When it finally did—a minute? maybe two?—the giggling started first in one and then skittered on over to the other, and it was maybe another minute before the laughter died down and then it was a few seconds after _that_ when a new batch of giggles followed these simple, fateful words.

"Oh god love, I think that sex may have fried my brain, because I swear something's burning."

_Good holy Christ. Um. What? Give me a second here…Right. All right. Okay. *Cough* Uh, one more chapter coming. It'll unveil the arsonist and include ribald domestic bickering. I doubt in that order. Frankly I don't know. I still can't think after all that so if you'll excuse me I need a cold compress and an emphatic lie down. P.S. You glorious artists that drew Sherlock in mehndi…don't you feel amazingly compelled to draw John's wings? Don't you?_


	6. Chapter 6

"Something's burning."

John closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the plush pillow of Sherlock's bum. "Yes love, it's me. I'm burning. No, I _was_ burning. Oh god that was amazing."

One man spun round, the other lost his balance and tipped into the dust. Both began swearing.

"What the _hell_ Sher—"

"No, something's damn well _burning _John and that something is _us."_

It was right about then the good doctor looked down to see a pert little bonfire feeding on his t-shirt, Sherlock's shorts, three socks, and a fair bit of 100-year-old straw dust.

"Jesus Christ!"

A barefoot John rolled out of the way exactly as Sherlock started stomping with his size-ten spike-heeled boots, both swearing, both waving arms and leaky dicks in the smoky wind.

While Sherlock stomped, John yanked up his jeans and started beating the flames and for long moments it was hard to tell if they were feeding or foiling the fire and then the answer was clear when all that remained was the swearing and the leaking and a few delicate curls of smoke wafting in the air.

John clambered to his feet. _"What the absolute fuck was _that?"

The good doctor glared as if the remnants of the fire could answer him, and then John glared at Sherlock as if somehow he spoke for random conflagration.

Sherlock blinked at the thwarted blaze, looked left, then right, up and then down. With the sole of his left boot he distractedly put out an ember trying to catch on his right shoelace and as John geared up for his second sweary sentence the deductive genius solved the frustrating Case of the Camden Town Fires.

"Seriously, I think someone just damn near set us on fire, Sherlock."

Sherlock opened his mouth to enlighten his little love, but his little love—now so pumped full of feel-good sex hormones he was back to his own, ragey self—was having god damn none of it.

"It's Timmy. I will bet you a hundred fucking quid it's that slinky little pretty boy. He's all up in wanting to get _up in_ you, he's all glad-handing and would probably love to—to—I don't know get us all fired up and dashing around and he'd probably swoop in and save your plush, naked arse and—"

"John—"

"—and be a knight in shining, groping armor oh and by the way, when you say he 'groped' what do you mean exactly?"

"I never said he groped me John, _you_ said—"

"Was it a little arse pinching? Some cupping? Because cupping isn't groping you know, it's a lot more serious than groping, especially if it's cock." John sucked in a scandalized breath and hiss-whispered. "He did _not _touch your cock. Did he touch your cock?"

Sherlock slow-blinked at his indignant little warrior. Waited a moment to see if there would be an actual _pause,_ then began to speak.

"John, I need you to focus. Initially—"

"If he touched you there—" John dramatically gestured south with both hands. "—I swear I will take him off at the knees. I will cut him down to size Sherlock Holmes, if he put one single, solitary hand on your penis."

Sherlock drew in a deep breath. Someone had to, and since John was possibly still working on the same one from three minutes ago, that someone was going to be Sherlock.

"A quick grab wouldn't be enough. I know that from experience. Because look at you. _Just look at you."_ Again with the double-handed gesticulating.

It so didn't matter that John was right, that Timmy had pinched _and_ cupped. Hell the gorgeous little creature had tried to slide a hand down Sherlock's _trousers _for heaven's sake and the only thing that stopped him was the fact that those trousers were so tight they could barely accommodate the small swell of Sherlock's breathing, much less five wriggling fingers.

"There's acres of you to get at—"

But that was beside the point. The _point_ was that Sherlock would let the whole damned Manchester United football team cup him if it meant closing a case, and John _knows_ that, he's always know that, and he also knows that in the grand scheme of things a little handling of Sherlock's lush bits or dangly parts matters not one whit. What matters are the clues, the facts, the _case._

"—and Timmy saw you half naked and he knew we were coming here."

And John's always been all right with that, the same way Sherlock's been all right when the hand is on the other bum, so to speak.

"He knew we were going to be right _here_ doing what we were doing and so he…he…he tried to—"

Sherlock took a deep _all right already_ breath and said, "Get over here."

John's brows went down and his hackles up. Sherlock rarely talked like that to him. Actually Sherlock _never _talked like that to him.

"John Watson, take one stride forward now."

You know what? Two can play the tiny tyrant game, even if one of them is not so tiny. After one cranky heartbeat John stepped forward.

Sherlock spread his arms like wings—a poor imitation of the grand ones on John's back—and enfolded his disgruntled little love.

"I love you John Watson, and I'm yours, every inch. And no amount of groping, fondling, touching, fumbling, pawing or petting by _anyone_ is going to cause me to give them so much as the time of day. You are the only one who gets to finger, fuck, lick, or suck any part of my body. Do you understand?"

News flash: It doesn't matter that you've just got off. It doesn't matter that because you just got off you're probably not going to get off again. It's just that some things said in some ways are all you need to get a teeny tiny fire going in the dangly bits.

Speaking of fire…

Quite a bit less grumpy now, John pulled away. "Why would Timmy try to set _you_ on fire? That just doesn't make any sense at all."

For a long half minute John ruminated on that and Sherlock let him. While one man had thinky thoughts and the other kept his mouth shut, both drip-drip-dripped discreetly into the dust.

"It's not Timmy, is it?"

Sherlock looked at John with a look that could only be called blasé.

"Who is it then? Who's been setting these fires all over the market?"

They stood quiet and still and looked at each other. A half dozen blinks elapsed. Five deep breaths. One final drip. Then Sherlock said, "Get dressed and I'll show you."

...

"Keep walking Sherlock."

Okay, here's the problem with 'getting dressed.'

The little nook fire? The one a sexually-satisfied John H. Watson gigglingly mistook for the over-heated pleasure centres of his own brain? That one?

Yes, well it had taken nearly half their clothing with it.

Which is to say John now walked down the crowd-thick aisles of the Camden Town market in soot-blackened jeans, one booted foot sans sock. On his straight-backed torso he worse precisely nothing but dark-henna wings, his black t-shirt having gone up a treat in the small blaze, along with Sherlock's tiny, button-free purple shorts and knickers.

Which was why Sherlock Holmes walked-swayed-strutted in front of John Watson dressed in nothing but henna, velvet boots, a tiny crop-top, and John's sheer, black-lace panties.

As you may have noticed long ago, there is something of the exhibitionist in Sherlock, what with his swirly crime scene pacing, his great coat fluttering, his button-strained shirts, and that flagrant mess of curls. Yes, they may or may not hint a little that there's something in Sherlock that relishes being looked at.

"Stop walking like that. Everyone's looking at you."

Sherlock wasn't even _doing_ anything really, he was just taking his _time._ He knew his slow stroll was driving John nuts and that was fine, because that's what Sherlock does and does and does to their mutual distraction, it's almost like a compulsive tic at this point, he does it even when he doesn't have to do it, he tries to draw John's eye _after he's already got it._ But that's beside the point. The point—

"Ouch!"

The good Dr. Watson was no longer behind Sherlock's wide berth, he was right next to it, palm pressed flat against flesh after that one mighty pinch. "I can see the crack of your arse through these things you know."

Sherlock briefly recalled the fine things they'd just done with the crack of his arse. "Yes, well if you'd just look, no one's even looking."

That was such a bald-faced fib John didn't grace it with a reply, instead he more carefully covered what small amount of Sherlock's broad backyard his hand could conceal. "You're striding round like cock-of-the-walk in mostly-see-through panties, you better believe—"

John growled at two sixteen-year-old boys drifting toward Sherlock like jailbait moths to a completely indifferent flame. "—people are looking."

Sherlock despairs, he very really does. How could John still be so blind sometimes? Yes, fine, sure some people _were_ looking but fully half those leering gazes were taking in the good doctor's small, half-bare form, including those boys who are, incidentally, going to fall upon one another an hour from now in grand gay revelation.

"Being as you've quite nearly collared and leashed me with that proprietary expression and the hand on my arse—John you do realize you're trying to push the fingers of that hand into—" Unaware that he'd even been doing it, John stopped trying to wriggle digits into his husband's body. "—and besides, what do you care if they look?"

John pondered this extremely valid question and about the time John's fingers again began unconsciously seeking entry into Sherlock's rear entrance _and_ he came to a conclusion, they were within sight of their own stall. And though it felt as if they'd been gone ten days it had really been a bit less than sixty minutes, sexual escapades and tiny inferno included.

And it was good, it was all good because the American? The one they'd left in charge? She was in deep and meaningful conversation with some pretty, sleek, Greek-god type, and didn't so much as pause in her scandalous conversation when at last she took note of their return.

Also fine, good, great, because they weren't _staying,_ they needed to—

"Timmy." John's tone was scalpel-sharp, cold and thin and quick.

A dozen feet distant they noticed the market's manager at the same time he noticed them.

Seconds later, Timothy Spencer Marks was again taking in an eyeful of Baker Street boy. This time the tiny one.

"Hello Dr. Watson."

"Timmy," said Sherlock, "I—"

"Or may I call you John?"

Sherlock shut his mouth and opened his eyes wide. Meanwhile the good doctor was about to do three things and only one of them was snarl, "Hell no you may mother fucking not."

After getting _that_ out of the way John intended on using his small broad body to block the flagrant expanse of his husband from this tiny creature's view—it didn't matter that Timmy wasn't even _looking_—and then maybe John was going to get all up in Timmy's personal space and discuss the appropriateness of groping vis-à-vis cupping.

But then the tiny creature, who was slimmer than good doctor Watson, more muscled, many shades darker, and almost one quarter inch taller did something rather amazing. He straightened his spine and he lifted his chin and suddenly he looked _exactly_ like John Watson.

"Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers? Decorated veteran?" Timmy smiled and it made his pretty eyes tilt up at the edges. "Well-know writer, too, yes? Saw your guest editorial in the _Financial Times,_ about the cost of crime vis-à-vis the National Health System."

Later that night John's going to insist he did _not_ smile all stupid-like or blush clear down to his collarbones. Sherlock's going to reply with a very tart, unSherlock word.

But that's not until later. Right now Sherlock's going to scowl and try to do the whole body block thing too, but being as there's a shoe vendor's table in front of John, the lanky git is going to have to crawl on top of it in order to impede Timmy's view and the good detective was still working on how to do that without anyone noticing.

"You can learn a lot about a writer from his words," murmured one small man to the other, "don't you think? Yours are straight-forward. Bold. Strong."

Sherlock was actually hiking up a knee to get on that table, but even a show-off's given pause at the sound of thin silk panties partially giving way. The good detective lowered his lean limb with an eye-drawing stamp of the foot and said, "Timmy, John and I would like to talk to you about the _fires."_

As if he were only just aware that Sherlock was there—and he kind of was, if you can believe it—Timmy turned to good detective, let his gaze slide down his front and back up again and said, "Oh. Right. Do you have news then?"

Pleased that the market manager was no longer undressing John with his eyes, Sherlock narrowed his and said softly, "No, I have the _arsonists."_

Two small men, one black, one white, both said loudly and in surprise: "Arsonists? There's more than one?"

Everyone stopped talking and looked at everyone else for long seconds and all three of them got confusingly sexy feelings, and then the two that were deeply and meaningfully pair-bonded sort of stepped closer to one another and the one that was flying solo bit his lip and thought _god damn it,_ and then everyone went into denial about their feelings and Sherlock said:

"Arsonists as in more than one."

Timmy opened his mouth to say something at exactly the same time John did and Sherlock, for the splitest of seconds was extremely distracted by that and then he just plowed on because the best way to manage things that confuse you, if you're Sherlock Holmes, is to completely pretend they don't exist.

"And more than two—" John and Timmy both opened their lovely mouths wider but Sherlock forged on. "—or three."

Oh that was just too much. "What the absolute fuck?"

That was John. Thank god that was John. Because if that had been Timmy sounding just like a tiny tyrant Sherlock's afraid something untoward might have begun happening in his little sheer panties and that would have confused him even more (Sherlock: Still not clear on the concept that sometimes, just sometimes, he actually finds other men attractive, especially if they remind him of John).

Speaking of John…

The good doctor crossed his arms. "Dial down the theatrics Sherlock and get to the point. How many arsonists are there?"

Yes. Good. A straight-forward question. Sherlock inclined his head toward John (he was now going to act as if Timmy didn't exist by simply pretending he was partially blind) and said, "Follow me."

What you need to remember about the Camden Market is that much of it is housed in an old labyrinthine stable and horse hospital. Everywhere there are dry wood beams, planked floors, narrow corridors leading to tiny alcoves and dusty corners. Add to this acres of fresh flammables like books, magazines, furniture, and clothes and you begin to understand that the entire market is simply one big supply of fuel for…

"This."

They'd gone not even a dozen paces and were now standing in one of those old passages. Sherlock looked down and a pair of dark blue eyes and a pair of brown followed his gaze. Both saw, but only one observed.

"Oh."

Timmy frowned at the ground. There was nothing there. He was about to say just that but Sherlock was on the move again, going along another aisle, into a broad wood-expansed arcade. Again he gestured. John nodded. Timmy just kind of went "Wha?" only without words.

After the third such stroll and point the market manager finally said it: "I don't get it."

John smiled. _Of course he doesn't get it. He may be gorgeous but he's not so smart._ John nodded with certainty._ Sherlock would _so_ not be into you._

Sherlock smiled. _Of course you don't get it. You're an idiot, like everyone else. Except John. _Sherlock nodded with certainty. _He would _so_ not be into you._

Here's the thing: We all of us see, but so often we don't observe because what we see is _always there._ So we stop seeing it. Sherlock may think he's the only one who deletes, but we all do, every day. We delete background noise so that we can concentrate, we stop seeing our spouse's mess on the coffee table, again and again we cease registering things over which we have no control.

We see, but we do not observe.

"Cigarettes."

Sherlock and John said it at the same time. Timmy's gaze bounced between them, then realization dawned—

"The fires were caused by cigarettes?"

—and just as quickly flickered out.

"But wouldn't the fire investigators have noticed something as obvious as…" Timmy gestured to the brown and white filters of spent cigarettes scattered at their feet.

"Of course," said John, and Sherlock got actual goosebumps, knowing his husband _knew, _knowing John had correctly deduced the cause of the fires. There began a slow and mighty stirring in sheer black panties.

"But think about it: nothing's left over from hand-rolled cigarettes. No evidence at all."

It's quite possibly very possible John _smelled_ the shift in Sherlock's hormone balance. The pulse in the good doctor's throat spiked and he may or may not have spread his henna wings, so to speak, by taking a deep breath.

"Some smokers throw their lit cigarettes on the ground—" John glanced at Sherlock and dropped his gaze briefly down. "—or over high stable walls."

By now even Timmy was realizing something was being broadly semaphored between Sherlock and John and it may or may not have left him frustratedly clenching parts of himself that could not readily be seen.

"It would account for the utter randomness of the fires and why there was so little evidence that even the great Sherlock Holmes was briefly stymied."

Once in a great while John verbally blogs. As in he starts talking just the way he writes on the blog. Usually Sherlock just rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but this time? Not so much. Instead the good detective stood tall, every inch of him saying to the little dark man in front of them: _See? Me. He picked _me.

Except that wasn't strictly true, of course, and Sherlock knew it.

The fact is, they'd picked each other. It happened the first time they stood in the same room and one of them presumed they'd look at a flat together and the other grumped about it. And then _did it._

John placed his hand at the small of Sherlock's back, smiled kind of smart-alecky at the market manager. "Any questions?"

Timmy looked at the two half-bare detectives and abruptly stopped seeing all that rosy, pretty skin. Instead he saw—and deduced—the most obvious thing in the world. He had not one flying fuck of a chance at either of them.

"Just one," the little man said.

No joke, both John and Sherlock knew what the question would be before it was even asked. And they were right.

"Where do I send the check?"

…

"That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen."

There are a lot of secret nooks, if you know where to look. The one the boys of Baker Street currently occupied was in the summer-cool basement of 221B, having adjourned to this temperate, dimly lit locale almost as soon as they got home.

John slid his arms around his husband's waist, kissed his chin. "I learned from the best." The good doctor sighed as Sherlock's fingers traced gentle over his feathered back.

"John?"

Busy standing on tiptoe, biting gently at Sherlock's neck, John huffed a small, questioning sound.

"I was wondering—"

John's hands slid down, fingers again pushing against the silk of black panties.

"—if, uh—"

Sherlock spread his legs in encouragement.

"—we could—"

John dipped his fingers into the low waistband of sheer black knickers then down. They cupped.

"—revisit a portion of this case?"

Both of John's hands kneaded—and needed—the magnificent thing beneath them. "I think…" After a few humming seconds a short questing finger slid low, then deeply home. "…we're doing that."

Sherlock more or less lost the ability to form sentences that contained vowels or consonants, though he was fairly plain-spoken with groans.

Didn't matter. John knew what he was going to say. As the good doctor went to his knees awhile later, gently tugging damp panties down to Sherlock's ankles, he murmured, "Yes you can paint me with henna. Later. Much later."

Not all fires smoke or burn. That doesn't stop them from being very, very hot.

_~ End_

_Well, that's what happens _every damn time_ you think you're going to write a short, silly little story. It turns into six chapters, one of them apparently requiring a bold warning about anal play (did not exactly see my life going in that direction) and then things get blushy and breathy and people burst into flames. So. What'd you think?_

_**MORE!** I'm no longer publishing on FFnet as they don't want NC-17 content, so please visit atlinmerrick dot livejournal dot com if you'd like to read more, or Tumblr or Twitter, and eventually everything will be on AO3—please follow!_


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